Category: Arts, Leisure & Culture

<em>Divergent</em> Trilogy Tackles Genetic Engineering and Genetic Discrimination
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Divergent Trilogy Tackles Genetic Engineering and Genetic Discrimination

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by on Jul 22, 2014 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Featured, On Books, On TV and Movies
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Warning! Spoilers Ahead!! Divergent is the latest of the teen dystopian future trilogies to hit the big screen. I have read all three books, Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant. Is it not my favorite trilogy in this growing genre, but I know that teens everywhere love it. I do appreciate that Veronica Roth has tackled some […]

A Place for Family Prayer
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A Place for Family Prayer

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by on Jul 15, 2014 in Featured, Marriage, MyChurchParish.com, On Books, Parenting
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Life today is fast-paced and can lead us astray, so we need to slow down sometimes and reset our direction toward God. The best way to begin this reorientation is by making space – both physically and spiritually – for prayer in the home. This is the message of the book The Little Oratory: A […]

Movie Review: <em>The Jewish Cardinal</em>
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Movie Review: The Jewish Cardinal

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by on Jul 11, 2014 in Featured, On TV and Movies
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The 2013 film (now on DVD and Netflix) The Jewish Cardinal is the life of the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, Aaron Jean-Marie Lustiger who died in 2007. May I say that this is the most tastefully, smartly irreverent life of a prelate ever on film? Jewish filmmaker, Ilan Duran Cohen, gets both Judaism and Catholicism […]

My Rules for Discourse on the Internet
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My Rules for Discourse on the Internet

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by on Jul 10, 2014 in Featured, On Media, Tips, Tools, Tech
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I could be having a great day and a nasty exchange on the Internet will always bring me down. Whether I am involved or not, uncivil discourse sucks the joy out of the Internet for me. I suspect it does for most people who are not secret psychopaths. I am especially discouraged when I see […]

Social Media Fasts: Making Room for Blessings
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Social Media Fasts: Making Room for Blessings

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by on Jul 07, 2014 in Business & Work, Featured, On Media, Tips, Tools, Tech
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Remember when social media fasting was trending during Lent? My big undertaking for Lent was to fast from Facebook, and though it wasn’t complete, it was my first attempt and pretty strict. It was such a huge change for me that months later, I’m still processing the experience and reaping rewards from the fast. My […]

<i>Journey of Our Love: The Letters of St. Gianna and Pietro Molla</i>
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Journey of Our Love: The Letters of St. Gianna and Pietro Molla

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by on Jul 02, 2014 in Featured, Marriage, On Books
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St. Gianna Beretta Molla is a popular saint, not only because she was so profoundly pro-life as to give up her own life in order to save her unborn child, but also because she was a modern woman and a working mother. She is someone mothers of today can relate to and aspire to imitate […]

Book Review: <i>Dear God, You Can't Be Serious</i>
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Book Review: Dear God, You Can’t Be Serious

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by on Jun 25, 2014 in Featured, On Books, Parenting
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Dear God, You Can’t Be Serious (Liguori Publications, 2014) is the sequel to Patti Maguire Armstrong’s Dear God, I Don’t Get It, but one need not have read the first one to enjoy the second. While the first book focused on older brother Aaron, a sixth grader who had to move to a new state […]

Why I Keep Returning to the Music of Beethoven
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Why I Keep Returning to the Music of Beethoven

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by on Jun 21, 2014 in Disability, Sickness & Suffering, Featured, Music
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In the great treasury of music, I keep finding myself coming back again and again to Beethoven. You may think it’s because he was one of the greatest composers who ever lived despite his deafness. That is true, everybody loves great music and everybody loves an over-comer. But there’s something more that keeps drawing me […]

Lust, Love, and Demons: A Review of <em>Tobit's Dog</em>
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Lust, Love, and Demons: A Review of Tobit’s Dog

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by on Jun 19, 2014 in Featured, On Books
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The Biblical story of Tobit’s marriage to Sarah, whose previous seven husbands had been slain by demons, has been cleverly reimagined in a new novel (released April 2014 by Ignatius Press) called Tobit’s Dog, by Michael N. Richard. The novel is set in the backwoods of Depression-era North Carolina. The plight of blacks in the […]

Let Us Make God in Our Image, After Our Likeness 'Cause It'd Be Awesome
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Let Us Make God in Our Image, After Our Likeness ‘Cause It’d Be Awesome

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by on Jun 16, 2014 in Featured, On TV and Movies
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This might hurt your brain, but stay with me friends. Imagine if he came the way we wanted him to? Imagine if Jesus answered the problem of evil with a punch rather than his paschal mystery? He would’ve kicked the devil’s butt. He would’ve been ripped, with muscles on top of his muscles. A combination […]

Movie Review: <em>Maleficent</em>
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Movie Review: Maleficent

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by on Jun 13, 2014 in Featured, On TV and Movies
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WARNING: LOADED WITH SPOILERS! Well, is Maleficent magnificent? Angelina Jolie is (of course), but the story? I don’t know. What?! I don’t have an opinionated opinion for once? No. It’s complicated. I am viewing “Maleficent” on its own, but also in the context of the more recent Disney princess stories. The times they are a-changin’. […]

How God Conquered My Fears in the Holy Land
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How God Conquered My Fears in the Holy Land

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by on Jun 12, 2014 in Columnists, Featured, Travel
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While I was in the Holy Land, many Scripture verses surfaced in my mind and heart as I stood in the places of the Old and New Testaments. But, the one I found myself recalling most often was Psalm 91: For you have made the LORD, my refuge,             Even the Most High, your dwelling place.      No […]

UK Embryology Authority's Inconsistent Ethics on Three Parent IVF
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UK Embryology Authority’s Inconsistent Ethics on Three Parent IVF

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by on Jun 12, 2014 in Featured, Reproductive Technology, Science
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In today’s society everything seems turned around. Black is white. White is black. You would think nothing would surprise me anymore, but it does, especially in the realm of reproductive medicine. The United Kingdom’s authority on reproductive medicine, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has called the creation of embryos with three genetic parents […]

Chiming in on the Church’s Changeless Chant Challenge
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Chiming in on the Church’s Changeless Chant Challenge

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by on Jun 10, 2014 in Featured, Music
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Normally I attend a parish that has excellent music—the best in town, actually. However, last Christmas Eve I ended up at a Mass that included a strange musical prelude. There were great voices in the choir, but the instruments employed (drums and an electric guitar) were out of place. The pounding and grinding were like […]

Book Review:<em> Chesterton’s America</em>
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Book Review: Chesterton’s America

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by on Jun 10, 2014 in Agrarianism & Distributism, Featured, MyChurchParish.com, On Books, The Social Order
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To recommend any book, I should at least be able to say to you that it is a pleasure to read. This book is a pleasure indeed! But saying the least is not my problem with reviewing Chesterton’s America: A Distributist History of the United States. My problem is having the space to say all […]

Movie Review: <em>Locke</em>
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Movie Review: Locke

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by on Jun 03, 2014 in Featured, On TV and Movies
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Locke, starring Tom Hardy–and only Tom Hardy–is being dubbed “Hamlet of the Highway,” and it’s exactly that. The premise of this one-actor film is simple and brilliant. The execution is also brilliant. A husband/father/expert construction foreman strayed once and only once in his marriage and got a middle-aged woman pregnant in a drunken one-night stand […]

June 1-2: Triumph with <em>Messenger of The Truth</em> on PBS
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June 1-2: Triumph with Messenger of The Truth on PBS

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by on May 31, 2014 in Featured, History, On Media, On TV and Movies, Vocations
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This Sunday, June 1, and Monday, June 2, a miracle of sorts takes place on mainstream TV as PBS affiliates broadcast a documentary about a heroic Catholic priest. Messenger of The Truth is about Blessed Father Jerzy Popieluszko, chaplain to the Solidarity labor union that nonviolently took down the communist regime in Poland. Some efforts to […]

Book Review: <em>The Heart of Catholicism</em>
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Book Review: The Heart of Catholicism

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by on May 30, 2014 in Catechesis, Featured, On Books
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Dr. Bert Ghezzi, well-known Catholic author of several books on the saints and the sacraments, has now written a book about how Catholics live. The Heart of Catholicism: Practicing the Everyday Habits that Shape Us (Ave Maria Press, 2014) “is a book about what Catholics do and why they do it. It describes the practices […]

How I Accepted the Challenge of Christian Fatherhood
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How I Accepted the Challenge of Christian Fatherhood

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by on May 27, 2014 in Featured, Men, On Books, Parenting
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Emily and I drove home from the hospital in complete silence. The gravity of the moment eleven years ago hit me: we were responsible for someone else’s life. Gulp. At this time, I had been a Catholic for only three years. Through conversion, I fell in love with the theology and the sacraments. Yet, I […]

<em>The Porn Pandemic</em> Shows Pornography's ‘Devastating Effects'
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The Porn Pandemic Shows Pornography’s ‘Devastating Effects’

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by on May 22, 2014 in Featured, Marriage, On Media, On TV and Movies, Parenting, Tips, Tools, Tech, Women
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What do half-a-dozen major sex crimes in America have in common? According to a new documentary by Family Watch International (FWI), they often start with pornography. Launched at the first End Exploitation summit last week, which was primarily organized by Morality in Media, “The Porn Pandemic: The Devastating Effects on Children, Family and Society” features […]

Holy Land - Preparing for Pope Francis
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Holy Land – Preparing for Pope Francis

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by on May 22, 2014 in Featured, MyChurchParish.com, Travel
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When Pope Paul VI visited the Holy Land, Auxiliary Bishop Marcuzzo was still only a seminarian, but to this day he remains impressed by the visit. Now, 50 years later, other seminarians are preparing for the visit of a new Pope. Returning to the sources: this was the goal Pope Paul VI had set himself […]

Book Review: <em>Something Other Than God</em>
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Book Review: Something Other Than God

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by on May 21, 2014 in Columnists, Featured, On Books
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I have a bone to pick with Jennifer Fulwiler:  she kept me up late for about week reading her book, Something Other Than God. And we’ve got four kids aged five and under, so sleep is at a high premium around here. I wasn’t planning on reading Something Other Than God at all right now.  […]

Movie Review: <em>Mom's Night Out</em>
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Movie Review: Mom’s Night Out

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by on May 14, 2014 in Featured, On TV and Movies
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Just in time for Mother’s Day comes a genuinely fun and funny film about the crazy adventure that is parenting, specifically motherhood (with a serving of fatherhood on the side). If you’ve seen the snappy trailer, the movie does deliver on its promise, and there’s lots more LOLs where that came from. But…. Dear Southern […]

The Way to Be as Happy as Pharrell Williams (Actually Happier)
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The Way to Be as Happy as Pharrell Williams (Actually Happier)

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by on May 13, 2014 in Featured, Live in Christ, Music
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The ancients knew we were made for it, we moderns are constantly seeking it: Happiness. It’s often associated with peace, rest, contentment, or completion. It’s the nunc dimittis we all hope to whisper at the end of our day. No matter who you are, where you are, it appears as the Lode Star for all human activity […]